Doo De Doo De Doo

As you probably know by now, I love the English language. Particularly its ambiguities of spelling. Homonyms are my bread and butter. Which is funny in itself, because I currently have no bread or butter in the house, and have never used a homonym to make a sandwich, and yet you understood exactly what I was getting at.

Hmmm.... a homonym sandwich with cheese and Marmite. Could work.

This particular post was prompted by my good friend Cindy, with whom I have spoken to on the phone a couple of times.

Now, for a Kiwi, half the fun of talking to an American is gently making fun of their accent.

"Say duty"

"Doody."

*snigger snigger*

"Say data."

"Dayta."

*snigger snigger*

I never claimed to be particularly mature. Let it go.

This can even be localised. Nothing's funnier to me than asking a Southlander to say purple. "Paaarlpul." Ah yes, the good ol' southern accent.

Accents can be funny. But on the whole we can understand each other.

But then there are the funny stories of people going into a sh0p and needing somebody to translate English into English so everyone can understand each other through the accents.

I've heard that one of my favourite films, Trainspotting, was nearly given subtitles in America, even though it is simply English with a Scottish accent. I've read American reviews of the film saying: "Don't worry, you can work out what they're saying after about half-an-hour."

Watching the DVDs with the subtitles on can be interesting, too. I think they've cleaned up their act a bit now, but there used to be times where the character would say: "I'm fucking sick of this fucking shit!" and the subtitle would read: "Gosh, I'm upset about this!" ... Like deaf people aren't allowed to swear.

Right. Well, I didn't have a point, and I feel I've made it.

I hope you understand my written accent. I could read it aloud, but you probably wouldn't understand me.

Now you’re talking my language

New Zealanders have a distinct accent. Our trans-Tasman cuzzies like to remind us of this by insisting we say “fush und chups” and “sex” instead of “six”.

That’s OK. We can take it. Just please (and I’m going to swear here, so brace yourself) for fuck’s sake stop trying to imitate it.

The worst case lately has been on Aussie TV series Underbelly, which in its second series examines the activities of the Mr Asia drug ring in the 1970s and 1980s. The key figure in the story was a Kiwi named Terry Clark, who set up a Melbourne-based import/export business – importing heroin to Australia and New Zealand, and exporting addicts into holes in the ground.

Actress Anna Hutchison plays an important role as Alison Dine, a New Zealand kindergarten teacher who ended up running Clark’s network for a bit while he was in prison. Hutchison can pull off a Kiwi accent; primarily because she’s a Kiwi.

But Katie Wall, who plays Kiwi lawyer Karen Soich, cannot do a Kiwi accent to save herself. She sounds like an Aussie trying to do a Kiwi accent. Which she is. But what’s worse is that she sounds like an Aussie trying to do what an Aussie thinks a Kiwi accent sounds like. The result is this bastardised combination of Aussie “eeee” and Kiwi “uuuh” that is just revolting to listen to.

The thing is, if she’d just done an Aussie accent, I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

An embarrassing confession here: I went to Canada in 1996 and spent two weeks in Montreal. I then spent a week in LA to do touristy things. While in LA I was in the hotel elevator and heard this small group of people talking. I had been away from South Pacific accents for a while, but this was familiar. I said: “Hey, are you guys Aussies?” and they looked at me funny and said: “Nah, mate, we’re Kiwis”.

I couldn’t tell them apart.

Ever since then I’ve maintained the difference between our accents is three weeks.

But this special message goes out to Katie Wall: If you can’t do it, don’t try. You’re right up there with Dick Van Dyke’s cockney on Mary Poppins and Meryl Streep’s “Deengo ate moi baaeybe”. Which, if Katie was doing it Kiwi, would no doubt have been: “a dungo aite muh boibbie”.